General
Leon E. Salomon
General Leon E. Salomon was born
in Chicago, Illinois, on April 27, 1936. He attended public and parochial schools in the Chicago area, graduating
from Calumet High School in 1954. He attended Florida Southern University, St. Petersburg Jr. College, and the
University of Florida, graduating in 1958. He holds an M.S. in Logistics Management from the Air Force Institute
of Technology, and is a graduate of the Infantry School, the Chemical School, the Command and General Staff
College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
He completed Infantry OCS in June 1959, and served for several years as an Infantry officer. Transferring to the Chemical corps in 1962 and to Ordnance in 1974, he held a number of increasingly important assignments. He was assistant Chief of Staff for Logistics, 3rd Armored Division in Germany; Chief of the Commercial Industrial Type Activity Team in the Management directorate, Office Chief of Staff; Commander, Division Support Command, 1st Division; and Deputy Commanding General, 21st Support Command.
For more than two years, he served as Commandant of the Ordnance Center and School and Chief of Ordnance, where improvements were made in training, doctrine, and evaluation programs and greater emphasis was placed on hands-on activity in the training process.
He then successively became Deputy Chief of Staff for Readiness at AMC, Deputy Commanding General for Logistics at TRADOC, Commander of the Logistics center at Fort Gregg-Adams, Deputy Commanding General for Combined Arms Support at TRADOC, and Commanding General, Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Gregg-Adams. He was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics at the Pentagon in 1992, and in 1994 began his final assignment as Commanding General, AMC. Under his leadership, AMC has been leading the Army well into the 21st century and toward a world of virtual design, virtual prototyping, virtual testing, and even virtual manufacturing of the tools necessary to bring the Army into the future.
In February 1994, General Salomon became only the second Ordnance officer in the US Army history to earn his fourth star. He has been a tireless, dynamic advocate of leveraging technology, and has adapted business practices to the Army's research and development, acquisition, and sustainment programs. While noting that technology will not replace the soldier, he has insisted that technology is "a means to give soldiers the extra edge they need and so rightfully deserve."
As an early advocate of the power of microprocessing; as a strong exponent of mentoring and nurturing the Ordnance officer, warrant officer, enlisted personnel, and civilian employees; of leveraging technology, whatever the source; and of adopting, adapting, and accepting sound, common-sense business practices; General Salomon has been the role model in the Army's continuing search for a better-equipped, better-prepared, and better-trained Army.